Britain: Silence fell on the streets of Soham yesterday as a murder trial jury retraced the final steps of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.The jurors walked the final route taken by the two 10-year-olds before entering the house where they are alleged to have been murdered by Ian Huntley.
They also stepped inside the hangar building at Soham Village College where the charred remnants of the girls' clothes were found hidden in a bin.
The centre of Soham was sealed off with a police cordon turning it into a virtual ghost- town and overhead a police helicopter enforcing a no-fly zone.
Traffic was halted and the residents of the normally busy Fenlands market town became almost invisible as the jury coach drove into town, surrounded by police outriders. Police officers stood in every street entrance, ensuring no one could approach.
A few shoppers watched in silence from a supermarket as the convoy passed through the empty streets. Even the CCTV cameras erected in the town since the tragedy were turned away during the jury's tour of the key sites in the case.
The jury coach began its journey at the Old Bailey at 9.40 a.m. and reached Soham at 11.07 a.m..
After a brief pause at Soham Village College - affording jurors their first glimpse of the empty shell of Huntley's former home - the convoy travelled to Jessica's family home in Brook Street.
The coach slowed to a virtual standstill as it passed the two-storey house, marked by a lone policeman, and was then driven the 700 metres to Holly's home in Redhouse Gardens.
Jurors have heard that Jessica left home at 11.45 a.m. on the day the girls disappeared, Sunday August 4th last year, and walked to Holly's house, where the two girls played together all day before leaving the house unnoticed shortly after 6.15 p.m.
The jury of seven women and five men, guided by prosecution counsel Mr Richard Latham QC, got off the coach outside the Wells's house and paused to hear the lawyer set out their route into the town centre. - (PA)